Orijin

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Vanderbilt Rape Trial: Jury Convicts Ex-Football Players

Two former Vanderbilt football players have been found
guilty of raping a young woman in June 2013.

The
jury took just hours to convict the two men on Tuesday. Brandon Vandenburg, 21,
and Cory Batey, 20,were each chargedwith five counts of aggravated rape and two counts of
aggravated sexual battery. They were convicted on all counts,ABC Newsreports.

The
victim, who has not been identified, told the court that she initially didn't
believe that she had been raped.

Vandenburg,
whom she'd been seeing at the time, told her she'd just gotten drunk and that
he'd had to take care of her.

"I
apologized. I was embarrassed," she said.

But
surveillance footage told a different story. Vanderbilt officials reviewed dorm
surveillance video from the night of the assault after receiving a report of
vandalism. What they saw was much, much worse: A young woman being dragged
unconscious into a dorm room. They called the police.

Still,
the victim did not cooperate. When Vandenburg texted her saying he was going to
get kicked off the team, she told him she'd protect him.

Since
then, however, video has surfaced of the horrific attack, recorded on
Vandenburg's own cellphone.

Prosecutors
played the video for the jury on Thursday. "That's me," the victim
testified, while her attackers looked on.

The
defense blamed the assault onalcohol and campus culture.

Forensic
psychologist Dr. James Walker testified Friday that Vandenburg could have been
so drunk that he had no idea what he was doing.

"He
was so intoxicated he was not his normal self," Walker said. "He was
doing things he would not normally have done."